


Imaginary Monster

by novaquill



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Cisco is mentioned once, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sorry for this, Lady Spellbinder is here too, Lewis Snart is mentioned but not seen, also vague mentions of abuse, also vague mentions of death, for one sentence, more like hurt somewhat comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 00:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6216565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novaquill/pseuds/novaquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry looked straight at him and for a moment, Len couldn’t make out the expression on his face.</p><p>Then it morphed, his face twisted and Len knew exactly what the kid was feeling.</p><p>Pure, unfiltered hate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imaginary Monster

Barry looked straight at him and for a moment, Len couldn’t make out the expression on his face.

Then it morphed, his face twisted and Len knew exactly what the kid was feeling.

Pure, unfiltered hate.

Len had never seen Barry this angry, this full of resentment. It almost scared him to see a face like Barry’s, usually light and youthful, twisted into an animalistic one.

Len knows the expression all too well, having seen it on his father more times than not, and _knows_ that it doesn’t belong on Barry’s features.

Lewis Snart had been a pitiful excuse for a man, a devil in the guise of a human. There was not a single righteous bone in his body and he only knew how to evoke two emotions: fear and hatred. A man so angry at the world, constantly cursing at how it had failed him, burdened him, that he channeled that anger through his fists and through his words.

Barry was the exact opposite. There was not a single bone in Barry’s body that _wasn’t_ altruistic. His anger didn’t cause him to lash out, he stored it away to make room for empathy and love and care. Len knew it wasn’t healthy, knew it wasn’t benefiting Barry in any way, but Barry would continue this system because he thought it was helping others and they wouldn’t have to see him lose his temper and be angry.

Len had never witnessed one of Barry’s meltdowns, had never seen his anger build up so much until he had to let it out. That is, he had never seen one until now.

Barry’s eyes were narrow and his brow was furrowed.  His eyes were full of hate and resentment. Len could see his fists clench and uncurl repeatedly as he breathed through his teeth.

“I hate you,” he grit out, each word slow and labored.

Len knew that tone, he knew it all too well. It was the tone Len used every night to curse his father, the only defiance he could use against the older man. It was also the tone Len had used right after he’d shot his father with his cold gun.

“I hate you, I hate you,” Barry kept repeating the three words, taking small steps toward Len each time they came out of his mouth. “I hate you!”

Len braced himself, squared off his shoulders and had his hand ready above his holster if he needed to get it out at a moment’s notice.

“Scarlet,” Len said carefully, his voice authoritative yet gentle. His free hand was slowly extended out in front of him, palm towards Barry. “You need to _calm down_.”

Len wasn’t even sure if Barry had heard him. The latter kept advancing towards Len, frustration seeping into his expression with every step.

“You’re not the man you were supposed to be, you aren’t who everyone thinks you are! You shouldn’t be proud of anything that you’ve done because anytime you accomplish something, it’s always at the expense of others!” Barry just stared at Len.

Cisco had warned them about the meta-human’s abilities before they left: the meta-human, Spellbinder as dubbed by Cisco, shot out blasts that would make victims face their worst enemy, the thing they hated most.

If it weren’t for the actual threat of Barry lashing out against him, Len would feel a small sense of satisfaction at the fact he was the Flash’s worst enemy, his nemesis. The thing that he thought about to overcome obstacles, the monster under the bed, in the closet. The thought that kept him up at night thinking of what he had to do to get better, become more powerful.

Whatever paltry pride he had felt evaporated instantly as Len realized that in Barry’s eyes, he was now just like his father: causing pain and harm to others around him without a care as long as it didn’t interfere with his plans. Len hated the feeling of being seen like his father. No matter how much Len robbed or stole, he would never be as terrible a man as his father, never in a million years.

“Scarlet,” Len tried again. “You got hit with something from that meta-human you were fighting. So take a deep breath, and _calm down_.”

Once again, his command fell on deaf ears as Barry gave no sign of recognition. The only sound coming from him was his heavy breathing.

“You’re- you’re,” Barry struggled, shaking with rage. “You’re _poison_!” He spit.

Len understood that Barry was channeling all of his rage towards him, what he hated, but it was starting to get on Len’s nerves. Len swore to find Spellbinder and ice her the first chance he got.

“You’re poison to everyone around you! People who get close to you end up hurt or dead! You drag everyone you love down with you and you tell yourself they’re there because they want to help you but that’s bullshit and we both know it! They don’t leave because you won’t let them leave! You’ve had too many people leave you in life that now, when you find someone you love, you grab onto them so hard you start suffocating them!”

With each word, Len’s fingers started inching closer to the trigger of his gun. He didn’t want to shoot the kid, but he would need to at least incapacitate him before he said something that made Len do something he’d regret.

“Kid, you need to stop for a second so we can figure this-” Len tried to get a handle on the situation, he really did, but Barry cut him off.

“You have more blood on your hands than anyone else I know, and I know some pretty terrible people,” Barry had the audacity to laugh bitterly. “Your hands are covered in so much blood they’re stained through the skin, down to the bone. So much blood that you can’t wash it off! The blood from your friends and family that is going to stay with you until you die because you’ve been accumulating it for so long! And you wanna know the worst part of it is?” Barry stopped for a moment as if expecting an answer.

Len didn’t bother giving a response, instead focusing on not icing the kid and controlling his breathing to not lash out back at Barry.

When met with silence, Barry continued. “The worst part of it all is that you don’t _want_ to wash it off. You want the blood to stay there so you can remind yourself of who had to die for you to get here, who had to save your sorry ass every time you messed up!  Despite the bigger part of yourself telling you to wash it off, scrub until your arms are raw, you can’t do it. There’s still a part of you that wants to guilt yourself with all the people who died because of you.

“Ever since you were a kid, you’ve had blood on your hands! It all started with your mother. The woman who cared for you, loved you, and you just _stood there_ and watched her die!”

“ _Barry_ ,” Len warned. His eyes were narrowed as well now, his cold gun now in his hand. Who did the kid think he was, bringing Len’s mother into this? Barry could stand here and insult Len, but Len would not stand for him to talk about his mother.

“You could have saved her but you didn’t!” Len saw Barry’s heels dig themselves into the ground, rooting him in place. “You stood there, and witnessed that _monster_ run a dagger through her heart, while you were in the other room and did nothing!” Barry’s voice was laced with pure rage but Len could detect hints of sadness creeping in. "He was there to kill you! You were the one who was supposed to die that night, not her!" 

Len was confused by Barry’s statement. Len’s mother hadn’t been killed by a stab through the heart- realization dawned on Len seconds later. Len’s mother may not have been killed by a knife to the heart but _Barry’s_ had been. The realization led Len to many more questions he just didn’t have the answers for and he hated it.

“No matter how fast you run, no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be fast enough! There will always be someone bigger, faster and stronger than you, someone who will take everything you love away from you! You can blame others all you want for the people you couldn’t save, but in the end, you’re the one who messes everything up!” Barry’s voice was now strained, and Len could bet that his throat was feeling raw.

Barry let out a deep breath through his grit teeth. He looked down and clenched his fists but didn’t release them. “No matter how many people you save, no matter how many criminals you put away, you’ll never be good enough.” His voice was barely above a whisper, even Len had trouble hearing him. “You’re a failure.”

Len had never heard Barry sound so small and so broken, so overcome with pain and anger and sadness that he just gave up. But the hero’s last few words made sense of the situation that had occurred – if Len had been questioning who it was Barry was seeing in his hallucination before, he was certain of who it was now.

He saw the fight evaporate out of Barry, his body sagged and his head stayed bowed. Barry walked to the nearest wall and slid down against it.

Len knelt down next to Barry and slowly put his hand on his shoulder and Len was surprised when the kid didn’t flinch.

“It- it’s alright kid,” Len wasn’t sure what to say, so he said what he thought the kid would need to hear. “It’s gonna be alright.” To Len’s credit, the kid had a small smile on his face for a split second and nodded.

They stayed like that for a few moments so Barry could compose himself and Len could try not to think about the implications of Barry’s vision.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song of the same name by Our Last Night from their new album Younger Dreams (which is fantastic btw)
> 
> I thought of this after a workout one night and I had written 500 words of it but then I saw the Supernatural quote (from 9x10) about "I'm poison" and I thought it was perfect so I modified it for the story, and it snowballed from there lol
> 
> (by the way, I hope what Barry saw in his vision was clear for everyone by the end of it. It was a little vaguer the first draft, but I added a few more things in that made it more obvious) :P


End file.
